Time for a Little Hope

Time for a Little Hope…

Jeremiah 32: 1-15

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul—

And sings the tune without the words—

And never stops –at all—

Emily Dickinson

To say that we are all running a little low on hope these days is to state the obvious.  Short of the attacks of 9-11-01 I cannot recall an event which has brought such devastation and despair upon our world.  To watch the news channels, to read the news online or in the newspapers (if you still do that) is to be submersed in an ever flowing torrent of negativity.  We all ask when (or if) the world as we know it will ever return to normal — and the answer is silence.  No one knows…even the experts find the question unanswerable.  We are living in a time of real despair and for many, authentic hopelessness.

As I reflected on our situation my thoughts went back to the time of Jeremiah.  Jeremiah knew what this was like… for if there was ever a time for despair it was his.  Jerusalem is surrounded by the Babylonians; devastation and exile are knocking at the door.  Jeremiah has proclaimed this to be the judgment of God upon Israel; he advocates surrender so as to avoid bloodshed.  His preaching has resulted in his arrest and confinement to the courtyard of the guards.  Viewed as a traitor by his people and a major nuisance by the King, Jeremiah knows these perceptions do not change the inevitable fate that awaits the nation of Israel.  God's judgment is sure and nothing shall stay the hand of God.  

In the middle of this national catastrophe Jeremiah commits a strange and seemingly foolish deed: he buys a field in the middle of Anathoth, a small village just northwest of Jerusalem.  Land to the Israelites was extremely important and under “the right of redemption” Israel had devised a plan whereby, in the event of poverty, death, or some extreme situation, families could keep ownership of their lands.  The nearest family member was required to purchase the land and so to keep it in the family.  Hanamel comes to Jeremiah and requests of him to purchase a field at Anathoth that he needed to sell.  

To be sure there is a lot here we do not know.  Why did Hanamel want to sell the property?  Was he old and dying or was he trying to take advantage of Jeremiah?  After all, if the Babylonians were about to conquer Israel, then any deeds would be worthless.  Was this Hanamel's way of trying to shut Jeremiah up?  Was he trying to take Jeremiah's money in exchange for a worthless deed to property that Jeremiah could not visit and in all probability never would?

Whatever the case Jeremiah saw in Hanamel’s request the word of the Lord.  This was what God wanted Jeremiah to do – and so he did it, weighing out the silver and sealing the deeds in an earthen jar to preserve them.  Jeremiah was buying more than a piece of property; Jeremiah was buying hope for his people.  Jeremiah knew that he would not be around to enjoy the field.  Jeremiah knew that he would never build a house or plant a crop on this field.  However, he knew that one day Israel would return to this land, that one day she would be restored by God to her place and land, and that one day his heirs would have this land and would remember what Jeremiah had done hundreds of years earlier.  

How could Jeremiah have such hope?  How could Jeremiah look at this situation and believe that anything good would ever come out of it?  Quite simply, his hope was neither in himself nor in his people, but in Yahweh God.  He knew and believed that the covenant promises of Yahweh God would be kept despite Israel’s failure.  Jeremiah knew and believed that God was faithful, even when Israel was not – and that one-day Israel would see joy and laughter in the land that was so dominated by grief and destruction.  

• His hope was not predicated on the goodness of the Babylonians – for they were anything but good.  
• His hope was not based on the resistance and resiliency of the Israelites, for they were a weak and impotent nation.  
• Jeremiah’s hope was based on the love and faithfulness of Yahweh God, for if God is anything God is loving and faithful.

If we would have hope today then it must be grounded in the same source, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Jeremiah, the God who reveals God’s self in Jesus Christ.  

• We dare not hope in progress, that humankind will “get better” for thousands of years of wars and brutality have revealed just the opposite: without God we get worse, not better.  
• We dare not hope in education as the answer, for with education all we have achieved is a higher level of evil.  
• At the risk of being misunderstood I must say that our hope is not in institutional religion, for by its very nature institutional religion tends to be a part of the problem rather than the solution.  Jeremiah’s biggest critics were the ministers, the priests, who counseled the King that Jeremiah did not speak for God.  These purveyors of political propaganda were nothing more than house boys for the King – and could not see the fact of their own corruption.
• Our hope is not in optimism – for hope and optimism are two very different animals.  Optimism has become a virtual religion in our country and is buoyed by the belief that with the right attitude one can achieve virtually anything.  Just keep persevering, keep believing that you can, and one day you will.  Hear me carefully: there is nothing wrong with perseverance and optimism that one can achieve.  Most people give up far too quickly.  However, optimism is too often based in the attributes of a person to overcome in a given situation.  
• Hope knows that we must use what God has given us, but also knows that there is One who is greater than our abilities.  Only in the God of Jesus Christ does our hope live and endure.  Christian hope is based solely in the God who has acted so decisively in Jesus Christ.  In his life, crucifixion and resurrection lie the basis for any and all Christian hope. Christian hope cannot be understood or experienced apart from faith in and the love of Yahweh God in Jesus Christ.

Jurgen Moltmann, the leading exponent of a theology of hope, put it well:  

The statement that "a world without God is a world without hope" is in its simplicity empirically misleading, for a world with God is empirically also a world with resignation and terror in the name of God. Hope depends on the God of Israel and of Jesus Christ, on the God of the resurrection of the coming kingdom on earth. Only this One is the "God of hope." Only this God is expected to be the "One who comes."

Quite honestly, we do not know that the future holds for any or all of us. What we do know is that Yahweh God is already forming that future for us and is out there, ahead of us, working to bring it to pass — just as Yahweh God has always been acting. Years ago as a seminary student I was required to read Reinhold Niebuhr (thank you Dave Mueller) — and in so doing was captivated by Niebuhr’s analysis of current political and international situations and his ability to bring theological principles to bear upon them.  Particularly meaningful to me are these lines which, I believe, are more true today than ever before.  May our Lord Jesus Christ work in and through all of us to engender the hope we so desperately desire:

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope.

Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; 

therefore, we are saved by faith.

Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Robert U. Ferguson, Jr., Ph.d.

The Sea Island Chapel

173 Marshland Road

Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

4/3/2020